Prototyping board - recommended but not essential. You can place your ESP8266 on an insulating surface or press it into some foam

Step 2

Go to the Arduino
website and download and install the version of the free IDE that matches your PC's operating system.

Step 3

You will need to add the ESP8266 libraries to your Arduino IDE. These can be added by going to File->Preferences and then typing

http://arduino.esp8266.com/stable/package_esp8266com_index.json

in the Additional Boards Manager URLs field, then click OK.

Step 4

You need to install the corresponding libraries so go to Tools->Board->Boards Manager.... Scroll to the bottom of the
list and the ESP8266 libraries should be listed. In this screen they are already installed but you should install them at this point by clicking
Install - it can take a couple
of minutes but there's an indicator so you can monitor progress.

Step 5

In my case I was using the
MakerHawk ESP8166 NodeMCU V3 PCB and you need to set the board type, etc. Other websites suggest using Generic ESP8266 Module
but this did not work for me. The type of programmer to use seems equally unclear, and possibly irrelevant, but choosing
AVR ISP worked. You should use the recommended settings for your board.

Step 6

The software installation is now complete. Since the purpose of the ESP8266 is to work over WiFi, we'll skip the "Hello World!" example and go straight
to a sketch that connects to WiFi.